


Territory

by cactustree



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s01e03 Squeeze, F/M, Season 1, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:53:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28195743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cactustree/pseuds/cactustree
Summary: In all the commotion, she hadn’t wondered why and how Mulder was in her apartment; he was just there, like he always is. He’s been in her life for a matter of months and already she’s begun to take his presence for granted, even when it defies all logic.~01x03 "Squeeze" missing scene.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 4
Kudos: 32





	Territory

“You all right?” Mulder asks again, after the police have escorted Tooms from Scully’s apartment. He already asked her this once, while Tooms was still handcuffed to the bathtub. Maybe he didn’t catch her answer, or maybe he didn’t believe her; maybe it doesn’t matter either way. Since the police arrived he’s trailed her like a shadow, maintaining no fewer than one point of contact when she’s in motion, more when she’s still: hand to elbow, to lower back; hip to waist, shoulder to ear; while an officer questioned her, he stood so close behind her that she was fairly sure she could feel his mouth hovering against the mussed hair at the back of her head.

Now the questioning has concluded, the police have scattered, and Mulder leans over her, his hand lightly grasping her waist. Her blouse is untucked, the bathtub full, a bottle of lavender bath oil at her feet, its contents spilled across the tile. Scully studies the shape of the viscous puddle, then the floor itself. She has never really looked at her bathroom floor before.

Mulder flexes his fingertips against her lower back, a quick scratch like you’d give a dog behind the ear. She tugs her eyes away from the floor and looks up toward him, not directly at him. Mulder has never been inside her apartment before, only outside it, to drop her off or pick her up. His first time in, he breaks down the door. Figures.

“Scully?” he says, and his voice startles her into meeting his eyes. His gaze is a blinding muddle of concern and relief and God knows what else and it terrifies Scully in a way not dissimilar to the terror she felt when Tooms had her pinned to the floor, poised to rip her liver from her abdomen with his bare hands.

It’s too much, having Mulder here, standing next to the bath she’d be submerged in right now if Tooms hadn’t—

“How did you know he would come here?” she asks suddenly, the question falling out of her mouth just as it drops into her mind. In all the commotion, she hadn’t wondered why and how Mulder was in her apartment; he was just there, like he always is. He’s been in her life for a matter of months and already she’s begun to take his presence for granted, even when it defies all logic.

Mulder opens his mouth to answer, then reaches into his suit pocket instead, pulling out a long silver chain with a pendant dangling from the end. Scully recognizes it immediately, but still it takes her a moment to understand. Instead of reaching for it, she reaches instead for where it should be, hanging around her neck. She hadn’t even noticed it was gone.

“I went back to Exeter Street,” Mulder explains. “I found this—he must have taken it off you when we…”

Scully briefly closes a finger around the chain just above the pendant, almost a perfect echo of that moment the other day in the stairwell, when Mulder reached out and caught it the same way he might catch her elbow to get her attention. She’s almost gotten used to this tendency of Mulder’s, how frequently he uses physical touch to communicate on top of or in lieu of verbal expression, and yet even by his unique standard, even though his hand barely grazed her shirt as he handled the necklace, that gesture felt more intimate than any of the countless times he’d actually touched her.

She turns her hand over, palm up, and Mulder drops the necklace into it. As he draws his hand away, he takes an unnecessary detour via her shoulder, skimming over it and down her arm. Yet as Scully studies the necklace coiled in the palm of her hand, she finds herself questioning her own assessment. It’s always unnecessary, when he touches her like this, but then maybe it isn’t, because look where they are now: standing here in her apartment while the assailant they took down together is on his way to the squad car; standing so close that they almost appear as one figure, their shadows bleeding together on the floor.

He touches the necklace where it rests in her open hand once more before he moves away. Scully closes her fingers around it, and although she knows she’s only imagining that she can feel the warmth of Mulder’s touch lingering on the pendant, it comforts her.

She won’t wear this necklace again, but she won’t get rid of it, either. It would be like getting rid of a piece of him.


End file.
